Alexei Silytsch Novikow-Priboi

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Depiction of Novikov Pribois on a Soviet postage stamp from 1977.

Alexey Novikov-Priboy ( Russian Алексей Силыч Новиков-Прибой ., Scientific transliteration Alexei Novikov Silyč-Priboj ; born 12 jul. / 24. March  1877 greg. In Matwejewskoje ; † 29. April 1944 in Moscow ) was a Russian writer.

life and work

Alexei Silytsch Novikow was born in 1877 as the second son of a simple farming family in the village of Matvejewskoje (in the Ujesd Spassk of the Tambov governorate , today Ryazan Oblast ). He first attended a church school. At the request of his deeply religious mother, who came from Poland , he should become a monk . However, since he was more enthusiastic about the stories of sailors passing through, he wanted to go to sea after graduating from school.

At the age of 22 he was drafted into the army in 1899 and, at his own request, transferred to Kronstadt on the Baltic Sea . There he attended Sunday school as often as possible and was increasingly concerned with literature. In Kronstadt he published his first article in a newspaper. However, in 1903 he was arrested on suspicion of spreading revolutionary propaganda . In Sunday school he had read forbidden literature on the advice of his teachers. However, he was not found guilty and was released from prison after a month. Since his service time was now coming to an end, he was already thinking about studying and wanted to devote himself more to his career as a writer.

After the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War , however, a fleet was put together to be dispatched to the Far East. Since the army preferred to remove so-called "political subjects" from Russia, Novikov was forcibly transferred to the battleship Oryol . The ship was part of the Russian Baltic Sea Fleet and was relocated to the Far East at the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War. The journey from Russia around the Cape of Good Hope via Madagascar to the Korea Strait took over 8 months.

In the subsequent naval battle of Tsushima Nowikow took part as a sailor. The Russian fleet was almost completely destroyed and nearly 5,000 Russian sailors were killed in the battle. Novikov, however, survived and was captured by Japan. While still in the labor camp in Japan, he began to write a book about the experiences of the 18,000 nautical miles journey and the battle that followed. To this end, he interviewed many survivors and thus received an almost complete picture of all Russian ships involved in the battle. In January 1906 he was allowed to return to Russia. There he published his first essays on battle under the pseudonym A. Saterty. However, since he relentlessly revealed the grievances in the Russian Navy, he got into a conflict with the tsarist authorities. As a result, he had to flee via Finland to London in 1907 , where he worked as a blacksmith and accountant, among other things. He later hired as a sailor on various merchant ships and lived in France, Italy, Spain and North Africa.

On the recommendation of Maxim Gorky , to whom he had described his existence as an emigrant in a letter, the story of his escape was published in a newspaper. As a result, Novikov then visited Gorky, who was living on Capri at the time . On the island between 1912 and 1913 he wrote various realistic stories about the sea, which were finally combined into a first volume of stories. With the help of another passport, he was able to return to Russia in 1913 . However, his stories were censored and could first appear in 1917. During the First World War he worked with his wife in a Zemstvo hospital . From 1914 he was able to publish smaller magazine articles and for the first time used the stage name Novikow-Priboi ( Прибой = surf ).

Around 1920 he began with the final version of his main work Tsushima (Russian Цусима ). The first volume - Die Reise - was published in 1932 and the second volume - The Battle - in 1935. Although it provided a complete overview of the Battle of Tsushima for the first time, it was also criticized several times in the following period. Novikov-Priboi portrayed, among other things, ordinary sailors as heroes, while the “tsarist” admirals and officers were responsible for the negative outcome of the battle for the Russians. His portrayal of Admiral Zinovi Petrovich Roschestvensky , who is portrayed by Novikov-Priboi as one of the main responsible for the defeat, is particularly controversial . In fact, the poor equipment and the combination of modern and outdated warships played a decisive role, which the admirals and officers on the ships could not change. From today's perspective, the book is a typical work from the phase of socialist realism .

During the last years of his life, Novikov-Priboi published numerous articles on the development of the Soviet fleet. No other publication, however, reached the drama of his major work Tsushima . In 1941 he was awarded the Stalin Prize for his work Tsushima . His last work “The Captain” remained unfinished. Novikov-Priboi died on April 29, 1944 in his Moscow apartment and was buried in the local Novodevichy Cemetery.

The marriage with Marija Lyudwigovna (1890–1979) had three children: Igor Alexejewitsch Novikow (1923-1996), Irina Alexejewna Novikowa (* 1934) and Vladimir Alexejewitsch Novikow.

souvenir

AS Novikow-Priboi museum data center

1969 his daughter Irina Novikova Alexejewna built in Novikov-Pribois dacha in cherkizovo, in Rajon Pushkino the Museumsdatsche AS Novikov-Priboi.

In March 1997, the Novikow-Priboi House-Museum was opened in Novikov-Priboy's hometown Matvejewskoje.

A river cruise ship of the Dmitriy Furmanov class bore his name from 1983 to 2011.

Works

  • The sinking of the armored cruiser »Borodino« (1906)
  • Tsushima (1932-1935)
  • The salty baptism (1933)
  • At the red fleet (1933)
  • Sacrifice (1951)
  • In Otrada Bay (1953)

Web links

Commons : Alexei Novikow-Priboi  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Дом-Музей в пос. Черкизово ( memento of January 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) at novikov-priboy.ru, accessed on January 1, 2014
  2. ↑ Дом-Музей в с. Матвеевском ( memento of January 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) at novikov-priboy.ru, accessed on January 1, 2014
personal data
SURNAME Novikow-Priboi, Alexei Silytsch
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Новиков-Прибой, Алексей Силыч (Russian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian writer
DATE OF BIRTH March 24, 1877
PLACE OF BIRTH Matveyevskoye
DATE OF DEATH April 29, 1944
Place of death Moscow